How can I change my Outlook.com inbox font color into black?

Anonymous
2013-03-19T12:11:59+00:00

Original post: Just had my old Hotmail transformed to the new Outlook. Who are the (removed by Moderator) who decided that light grey type is easier to read than black? Is there any way to change that color on my screen?

These 60-year-old eyes find it hard to read the light grey type that y'all apparently think makes you look cool. Utility is more important to to me  than "cool". Can I change it to black on my screen?

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Settings

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2014-09-02T14:01:29+00:00

... who decided that light grey type is easier to read than black? Is there any way to change that color on my screen?

This is an old question which was never satisfactorily answered despite the markings on some of the posts. It still attracts attention, possibly because it's been marked as answered, so here's a different response:

This sort of problem is best tackled by making style adjustments in the browser, to override the styles dictated by the web page's designers. I only ever use Internet Explorer, and this is how I make the text in Outlook.com's message list both bigger and blacker without affecting anything else much.

1.   Copy the text in this box and paste it into a new Notepad document:

.t_lnk a, .t_lnk a:link, .t_elnk, .t_qtc,.t_qtc:hover,.t_qtc:visited,.mlRd .t_estc, .t_qtci, .mlUnsel .t_cag.nc:hover 

{font-size: 14px !important; color:#000 !important;}

.mlUnrd.t_sel div, .mlRd.t_sel div, .mlUnrd.t_sel span, .mlRd.t_sel span, .mlUnrd.t_sel a, .mlUnrd.t_sel .Fm a, .mlRd.t_sel a, .mlUnrd.t_sel .DtB a, .mlRd.t_sel .DtB a

{color: #FFF !important}

2.   Click File > Save As. In the Save as type box, select All files (*.*), then in the File name box type

      ol-black.css

3.   Select a suitable place to save the file, e.g. in your Documents folder.  

4.   Open Internet Explorer and go to your inbox at http://mail.live.com

      The message list will probably look something like this:

5.   Click the Internet Explorer settings cog in the top right-hand corner of the window

      (not the identical outlook.com one below it). Select Internet options.

6.   Click the Accessibility button on the General tab.

7.   Select Format documents using my style sheet and click Browse.

8.   Navigate to the file you saved earlier, select it and click Open.

9.   Click OK twice. With any luck, your message list will now look something like this:

The CSS file can be fine-tuned if necessary. Does this help any of you?

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Anonymous
2013-04-08T05:05:58+00:00

Hi Everyone,

I can see how important it is to all of you to be able to change the font settings in the new interface. Your level of dissatisfaction of not being able to change the font settings of your Outlook.com emails is completely justified. We appreciate your time in sharing your thoughts and opinions while we are working to fine tune your Outlook.com experience.

If you want this feature to be available to the product, please send us a feature request on this link.

If you need additional assistacnce, please let us know.

Thank you,

Alix Xedjhidee

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-02T16:49:43+00:00

    Wow,

    An answer that actually answers the question - and helpful too ! (seriously ;))

    After doing the css change, text is definitely easier to read.

    Not sure it's truly black - mor sort of dark charcoal.

    Perhaps that ;s a screen setting.

    Thats said, there are still some websites that are decidely grey. Probably nothing can be done - except ignore them.

    Anyway, thanks again for the improvement.

    (FAO Microsoft.

    That doesn't change the loss of functionality / readability in Hotmail / Outlook)

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-10-20T21:22:13+00:00

    We very much appreciate your thoughts about the layout of Outlook.com and how you feel about it. In Outlook.com, there are several limitations to changing how it looks. We highly recommend that you visit our Feedbackarea where you can suggest of new features/themes/layout which you think are important to add to the product. We consider suggestions and comments provided by our users and you can expect to see many improvements in future releases.

    This has been your forum's response for over 12 months. I and many others have responded to the link for feedback and there is no sign anything has been actioned. Surely it can't be that difficult and I assume Microsoft would prefer to keep its customers? (perhaps not ...)

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-09-20T16:36:18+00:00

    Oh my God!

    Has anyone taken the time to actually, entirely read this thread from beginning to end?

    There are about six posts from MS "moderators" or "experts" who insist the problem is the border color of the application window.   Where did that even come from, that idea?  No one asked about that.

    The OP specifically asked about the FONT.  Why a microsoft person would even waste time posting about the border is beyond me, unless these are all answer-bots. Which I suspect might be true in some cases. 

    I'm not altering code or anything. I'm just going to use gmail.

    It's the FONT COLOR of the WORDs in the BODY of the EMAIL that are grey after your read them. The COLOR can't be changed.   Why?

    Simple question, Microsoft.

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